THE SILENT SCREAM

THE SILENT SCREAM— that comes from within us, without a sound.

It reaches out to the world, society, neighbors, partners, children, and even dogs.

My portraits are echoes of emotions from friends, family, artists, and everyday people I have briefly encountered and with whom I shared deeply profound moments.

With this series, I aim to hold up a mirror to society. It is directed against all those who view vulnerability and complexity as weakness.

The idea of drawing on dessert plates came to me one overcast autumn afternoon, after savoring what might have been the finest chocolate cake of my life at a street food café in New York. Beside me sat an elderly woman who, after a while, began to unfold pieces of her life—a tapestry of reflections and regrets, laid bare as she looked back on the years. In that moment, I felt an irresistible pull to capture her essence, sketching her with a simple ballpoint pen onto the delicate paper plate beneath my dessert. That impulse became a journey, evolving from that single, fleeting sketch into a practice, and from there, into an art. Over time, I have captured over 500 faces—each one belonging to someone I encountered, mostly during my travels through more than a hundred countries.

The idea of drawing on dessert plates came to me one overcast autumn afternoon, after savoring what might have been the finest chocolate cake of my life at a street food café in New York. Beside me sat an elderly woman who, after a while, began to unfold pieces of her life—a tapestry of reflections and regrets, laid bare as she looked back on the years. In that moment, I felt an irresistible pull to capture her essence, sketching her with a simple ballpoint pen onto the delicate paper plate beneath my dessert.

That impulse became a journey, evolving from that single, fleeting sketch into a practice, and from there, into an art. Over time, I have captured over 500 faces—each one belonging to someone I encountered, mostly during my travels through more than a hundred countries.

Corinna-Rosa Falkenberg